Aether Everywhere #2
We’re going to christen the new AE blog with a healthy dose of Motorik -> Space Kraut rock goodness with the Aether Everywhere Radio show’s second episode dedicated to Harmonium and Co.
Harmonia started out as side project for Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster and Michael Rother of Neu!, and on Deluxe, they also prominently featured Guru Guru’s Mani Neumeier on drums. We recommend both this and Musik Von Harmonia, if you haven’t checked them out. Eno loved them, and Bowie’s Berlin-era albums wouldn’t have sounded the same without them.
The download, courtesy of your charitable psychedelic ambassadors:
1) “Girl Call” – Guru Guru UFO / Great opener – starting out slow and building in waves of echoing guitars and Mani Neumeier’s dextrous playing.
2) “Fotschi Song” – Cluster Zuckerzeit/Listen to this and try to remember the last time you heard a song so gracefully kick some ass.
3) “E-Musik” – Neu! Neu! 75/Listen to this and try to remember the last time you heard a song so full-on kick some ass.
4) “Veterno” – Harmonia Musik Von Harmonia/Harmonia’s more stripped down approach, with the drum machine taking center stage and Rother practicing beautiful restraint.
5) “Sunrain” – Ashra New Age of Earth/When the rest of Ash Ra Tempel fell away, Manuel Gottsching pushed on, creating gorgeous cyclical patterns that rivaled the work of his former bandmate and space rock pioneer, Klaus Schulze. This couldn’t be a more perfectly titled song.
6) “Ala Tul” – Agitation Free Malesch/Dear Lord, thank you for making Krautrockers who love them some Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Amen.
7) “Darkness: Flowers Must Die” – Ash Ra Tempel Schwingungen/And just when you thought “E-Musik” kicked the most ass…
“Birth of Liquid Plejades” – Tangerine Dream Zeit/Dear Brian Eno, Thank you for taking credit as the inventor of ambient music, even though we put out Zeit in 1972 and you put out Discreet Music in 1975. Love, Tangerine Dream
9) “Universal Band Silhouette” – Jan Jelinek Kosmischer Pitch/This may seem like a bit of a curve ball, considering Jelinek’s a microhouse guy and this was recorded in 2005. For Kosmischer Pitch, though, he decided to assemble his tunes using Krautrock samples, and “Universal Band Silhouette” kicks the album off with hypnotic guitars that would make Michael Rother proud.
10) “Im Garten Der Gemeinschaft” – Popol Vuh Fitzcarraldo/A beautiful cut buried in the soundtrack for a Werner Herzog film about a opera house being built in a South American jungle. Any of the albums Florian Fricke composed for Herzog’s films are worth seeking out.
